The court cleared Pistorius to compete, but read the ruling closely: it never said the blades gave no advantage. It said the IAAF failed to prove one. The actual question was left wide open.

#Running #RunningHistory #Paralympics #TheLongRun

The debate wasn't really about whether the blades helped Pistorius — it was about the metabolic cost argument. Carbon fiber returns energy a human ankle can't, but it can't generate force either. The IAAF banned him, then lost the appeal.

#Running #RunningHistory #Paralympics #TheLongRun

New episode: April 10, 1896—a Greek water carrier named Spiridon Louis wins the first marathon ever run in 2:58:50, by over seven minutes. Two princes reportedly ran the final marble lap beside him. He didn't break the record. There was none. He set the first. #Running #RunningHistory #TheLongRun

The IAAF banned Oscar Pistorius from able-bodied racing in 2008, arguing his blades gave him an edge. What gets left out: the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned it, and four years later he ran the 400m at the London Olympics. #Running #RunningHistory #Paralympics #TheLongRun

Everyone remembers Spiridon Louis crossing the line in 1896. Almost no one remembers that the marathon existed at all because of a century of poets, doctors, and promoters who spent decades reviving the ancient Games first. The lone hero is the part we kept.

#RunningHistory #Running #TheLongRun

The 1896 marathon wasn't really an athletic contest by the time Spiridon Louis reached the Panathenaic Stadium — it had turned into national theatre. The finish was staged as spectacle, not sport.

#RunningHistory #Marathon #Olympics #Running #TheLongRun

Spiridon Louis is remembered as a humble water carrier — the peasant who won the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896. But that occupation got quietly upgraded over the decades. The tidy underdog story is a later edit, not the record.

#RunningHistory #Marathon #Olympics #Running #TheLongRun

Nobody had ever raced a marathon before 1896 — the distance was invented for the Games, at 40km, not today's 42.195. And the Pheidippides run it honors rests on shaky ancient evidence. #Marathon #RunningHistory #Olympics #Running #TheLongRun

The marathon wasn't an ancient event revived — it was invented for the 1896 Games, built on the Pheidippides legend historians still argue over. A 23-year-old water carrier named Spiridon Louis won the first one. The myth came before the sport.

#RunningHistory #Marathon #Running #TheLongRun

New episode: the Maffetone Method. Mark Allen lost Kona five times, then a heart-rate ceiling and "slow enough to hold a conversation" pace made him a six-time world champ. We dig into the 180-formula and why slowing down for years is the point. Listen now. #running #RunningHistory #TheLongRun

Everyone credits Maffetone with the "180 Formula," but the aerobic-first logic underneath it wasn't his invention — it traces back to earlier coaches and physiologists he's rarely mentioned alongside. The idea was old before it got his name on it.

#Running #RunningHistory #MAF #TheLongRun

The famous "180 minus age" formula isn't the tidy science it's sold as. Trace it back and it leans heavily on Mark Allen's results, not controlled trials — and the fat-burning payoff may be smaller than the fandom insists.

#Running #RunningHistory #Endurance #TheLongRun

Mark Allen won six Ironman titles on it, but the MAF formula's famous "180 minus your age" has no lab validation behind it. Maffetone never published where the 180 came from. A cornerstone of aerobic training rests on a number nobody can source.

#Running #Triathlon #RunningHistory #TheLongRun

The whole method rests on a heart-rate ceiling most runners find embarrassingly slow: 180 minus your age. The counterintuitive part is the claim that running that gently, for months, is what eventually makes you fast. #Running #Triathlon #RunningScience #RunningHistory #TheLongRun

New episode: the tempo run, the least dramatic workout in distance running. We dig into why "comfortably hard" is such a narrow band—and why it works has almost nothing to do with how it feels. It's really about clearing lactate faster than you make it. Have a listen 🎧 #RunningHistory #TheLongRun

The tempo run has no single inventor, and half of what people think it trains it doesn't. The thread runs from Hill and Lupton's lactate work to Iglói's "fresh swing" and Lydiard's steady-state — three different ideas wearing one name. #Running #RunningHistory #Tempo #TheLongRun

"Comfortably hard" wasn't always the definition. The tempo run started as a precise pace target, then two vague words turned a measurable workout into a feeling. Nobody agrees where the threshold actually sits anymore. #Running #RunningHistory #Marathon #TheLongRun

"20 minutes at threshold pace" is the tempo run everyone repeats. But dig into the physiology and the pace most runners actually hold rarely sits at the lactate threshold it's named for. The label outran the science. #Running #RunningScience #TempoRun #RunningHistory #TheLongRun

The "tempo run" gets sold as one clean workout at one magic pace, but the phrase "comfortably hard" is doing a lot of hiding — nobody fully agrees where that line sits. And lactate isn't the waste product the story makes it out to be. It's fuel.

#Running #RunningHistory #TempoRun #TheLongRun

How does a race let an 8-year-old and a 72-year-old both win? New episode digs into the Dipsea's radical handicap system—up to 25 minutes of head start—and why the first runner across those 7.4 Marin miles is almost never the fastest. Give it a listen. #Dipsea #Running #RunningHistory #TheLongRun